Note: The following appears in the North Carolina football digital gameday guide, available HERE.
When former Clemson All-America safety Robert Carswell was named principal at Joseph Keels Elementary School in Columbia, S.C., one of the first people he couldn’t wait to tell was Rich Bisaccia, the assistant coach who recruited him to Clemson nearly 30 years ago.
“We have kept in touch all these years,” said Carswell. “He has always been interested in my career, even after I was no longer a Clemson student-athlete.
“If it wasn’t for Coach Bisaccia, I wouldn’t have gone to Clemson. I grew up idolizing Jerome Bettis at Notre Dame, and that is where I would have gone if Coach Bisaccia hadn’t done such a great job recruiting me.
“He would send me hand-written letters telling me about the Clemson family atmosphere and what I could accomplish at Clemson, on the field and off. I was tired of the recruiting process and didn’t want to take a fifth visit. But he sold me on visiting Clemson, and I loved it once I got there.
“He had an amazing ability to send me letters right about the time other schools were visiting my home. He always kept Clemson on my mind.”
It has often been written that one of the reasons for Clemson’s success under Head Coach Dabo Swinney has been the program’s culture. There is a family atmosphere and a feeling that when you decide to come to Clemson, it is not a four-year decision, but a 40-year decision.
I can tell you that culture has been strong for a long time, and Bisaccia was one of the reasons in the 1990s, when he was the running backs coach and recruiting coordinator under Head Coach Tommy West between the 1993 season-ending Peach Bowl victory over Kentucky and the 1998 season.
After 28 years away from the Clemson program, including 24 in the NFL, Bisaccia returned to the Clemson program earlier this year. His return has established a record for the most years in between full-time coaching tenures in program history. The previous record was the 21 years Whitey Jordan spent away from the program between the end of his tenure as line coach under Head Coach Hootie Ingram (1972) and his return as offensive coordinator under Head Coach Ken Hatfield in 1993.
While there is a 28-year gap on Bisaccia’s resumé between stints at Clemson, he always kept track of the program and kept in touch with his former players.
“I recruited and coached a lot of terrific players in the 1990s here. I have always kept in touch with Raymond Priester, Emory Smith, Nealon Greene and, of course, Robert Carswell.
“When I got the announcement that Robert had been promoted to being a principal, I said to myself, ‘That is why you have done this for over 40 years.’”
Keeping up with the program over the years certainly had a lot to do with Bisaccia’s desire to return to Clemson after so many years away from the college game. That included following the program in 2008 and 2009, when Swinney became the head coach.
“I had met Coach Swinney a few times when he came to an NFL game I was coaching to see one of his former players,” said Bisaccia. “I was very impressed and we continued to keep in touch. I found him to be very genuine.”
That relationship reached a new level in 2021. On Oct. 11 of that year, Bisaccia became the interim head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. It was a very similar situation to how Swinney became Clemson’s interim head coach in 2008. In fact, Bisaccia’s hire date was just two days short of Swinney’s Oct. 13 hire date.
“I was very aware of how Dabo had become Clemson’s head coach, and I was in a very similar situation. So I called him and spent a lot of time picking his brain, especially at the beginning when it came to addressing the team and the coaching staff. He gave me some great ideas. He helped me with that difficult transition, and he was so generous with his time.”
Like Swinney, Bisaccia made the most of his opportunity. Swinney took the Tigers from a 3-3 record to the Gator Bowl at season’s end. Bisaccia led the Raiders to a 7-5 record for the 12 games he was the interim coach. Five of the seven wins were decided by a touchdown or less. He became the first interim NFL coach to lead his team to the playoffs since 2012, when Bruce Arians did so with the Colts.
Unlike Swinney, the Raiders did not give Bisaccia the full-time title at the end of the season. Bisaccia remained in the NFL, moving to the Green Bay Packers for the 2022 season. He served as their special teams coach through 2025.
Swinney could not have hired a more experienced coach to serve as special teams coordinator. Bisaccia held that position for 24 NFL seasons (2002-25) after he had been a college assistant for 19 years.
The native of Yonkers, N.Y. hit the ground running with Jon Gruden and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002. The team won the Super Bowl in Bisaccia’s first year. He stayed with Gruden in Tampa through the 2010 season, then worked the 2011 and 2012 seasons with the San Diego Chargers, from 2013-17 with the Dallas Cowboys and from 2018-21 with the Raiders.
No one will be better able to mentor Clemson players when it comes to what it takes to reach an NFL roster.
“Coach Bisaccia always cared about all the guys on the roster,” said Carswell. “He challenged you to be your best, on the field and off. You knew he cared about you as a person, and I know that will continue at Clemson this season. He is going to be a real asset to the program.”